Music Blog

Introducing the Band, Part One: Ryan Wasoba's Bass Day

Without further ado, here is part one of our introduction to the band So Many Dynamos. Meet guitarist Ryan Wasoba, who penned the following post.

Is there any instrument more genuinely hilarious than the bass guitar? Maybe I'm just biased; most of my musical effort over the last four years has been spent in a band that uses a keyboard in its place. I would approximate my daily odds of not coming into contact with a bass guitar at 9:1. However, on Tuesday, August 13, I unintentionally had a Bass Day.

I woke up and went straight for my computer. I had been recording a band called Torchlight Red and had to mix two of their songs. It was pretty painless, but I hit a wall in trying to make the bass sound right with the rest of the instruments in a few spots. This led to some extra bass-related work that I had not anticipated. After two bass-filled hours, I took a break and went to China King.

China King is my favorite Edwardsville, Illinois, eatery. The crab rangoons are the best in Madison County, and the lunch specials always stretch into two meals with proper conservation. A cool vintage guitar shop named Guitars of the Stars lives across the strip mall. With a belly full of curry chicken lunch special, I wound up falling in bass-love with a $225 bass guitar. It's the only time in my life I've ever contemplated buying one. I forced myself to leave before my credit card came out.

A few hours later, I was in a bedroom watching the end of Snatch with my girlfriend and a few of her friends I had never met before. One guy was sitting on a couch, amplessly playing a Fender Jazz Bass while an acoustic bass leaned untouched against the wall.

I left there to go to Thor Axe practice at my house. Thor Axe is the So Many Dynamos triumphant math/metal side project. Reason for practice: to teach the songs to Bobby McCosky, our new seventh member and secondary bass player.

Around eleven p.m., I found myself where my day began: in my basement at my computer. As I sat and contemplated my day and the overabundance of bass, a low frequency from another room crept through the floor. Friend and local jazzist Nick Jost had come over. Nick just completed a trip to New York with the intent on purchasing a professional-grade upright bass. Apparently, he succeeded.

Maybe all of this bass-ness isn't that strange after all. Maybe this falls under the "you-had-to-be-there" category. It makes me wonder: What did I learn from this? Did 24 hours of bass-in-my-face change my opinion of this mysterious four-stringed (or, heaven forbid, five- or six-stringed) instrument? I think it's still too early to tell, but I do feel an epiphany coming on. I truly believe that one day, I will look back upon my Bass Day and see it as a turning point in my life.